Shop lighting: weighing cost and efficiency

shop-lighting-upgrade

[Ben Krasnow] wanted to upgrade his shop lighting but before he made any decisions he decided to educate himself about the options that are out there. Luck for us, he shares the facts about different lighting in terms of cost and efficiency. His old setup uses fluorescent light fixtures with T12 bulbs. These are rather bulky and inefficient bulbs. Many folks, ourselves included, would think … [Read more...]

10,000 watt fluorescent array

This is an array of flourescent tubes that form a display. The video above is just two modules of a ten module installation that [Valentin] and his team are showing at an exhibition in Berlin tomorrow. The connected modules form something of a scrolling 16-segment display (similar to the 17 segment display modules of the ninja party badges but much larger). They're using triacs, optocouplers, DMX, … [Read more...]

210 LED lamp

full-mountedLeds

Current fluorescent lamps are great for lighting large areas using very few Watts; however, LEDs are far more efficient at producing light and have less of an impact upon the environment considering there is no mercury within them. [Andrew] sent in his team's LED florescent bulb. The first revision utilized 87 LEDs, but to increase output the second revision uses 210. The assembly can't actually … [Read more...]

FIELD a fluorescent array, wirelessly powered

richard-boxs-light-field

What would you do if you were driving along the highway and you glanced into a field to see a giant array of fluorescent tubes lit wirelessly from the electromagnetic fields of power lines. Back in 2004, [Richard Box] set up this display after hearing about a friend playing "light saber" with fluorescent tubes under power lines. The tubes can be lit pretty easily by have a variation in voltage … [Read more...]